Extra carriages for South West Trains

Steve Brine has highlighted 'extremely welcome' news from Government as Transport Secretary Justine Greening announced extra carriages will be provided for South West Trains commuters.

The Winchester & Chandler's Ford MP has worked very hard on commuter issues since he was elected in 2010, and is delighted that the carriages will be used to boost capacity on South West Trains services travelling into Waterloo by an extra 40 carriages in the morning and 37 carriages in the evening.

Justine Greening said: "I'm determined to do what I can to improve the service and this is great news for passengers. Adding extra carriages to these vital routes will mean more seats for passengers, easing congestion but also helping to boost London's economy.

"With over 1 .4 billion rail journeys on the rail network a year, travelling by train is more popular than ever. So, to help meet that demand we are delivering the biggest rail modernisation programme since the Victorian era, with £18 billion committed in this spending period. Today's good news is part of the Government's programme of providing additional capacity on the railway and will benefit passengers across the South West Trains network.

"So whether you are in Guildford or Portsmouth, Ascot or Basingstoke, Eastleigh or Exeter, Alton or Aldershot you'll be getting better services and more seats —which adds up to a real win-win for passengers."

The extra carriages are Class 456 vehicles which are being cascaded from Southern Railways. Six lengthened main line morning peak services on the Portsmouth, Portsmouth via Winchester, Exeter, Alton and Basingstoke routes to London Waterloo. They will be introduced into service between March and December 2014. Additional capacity will be provided on 17 separate services travelling in and out of Waterloo together with the creation of two additional 8-car morning services from Raynes Park to London.

Steve Brine said: "This is extremely welcome news which will be well received by hundreds of my constituents who have put up with unacceptable levels of over-crowding on certain peak time services for years. I am pleased the Government have acted but will now be following this up robustly to ascertain which services exactly will be improved and to try and speed things along as 2014 is simply not fast enough."